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A review with no review but 14 pictures to help you to find out about this Japan-only game which has been doing very well in the charts next to Super Mario Sunshine. Good week-end !
» Review of Zoids VS
It's been officially announced by Microsoft: they bought Rare. Rare is not longer affiliated to Nintendo, Nintendo doesn't have anything to do with Rare anymore. You can kiss goodbye Kameo: Elements of Power and Donkey Kong Racing (both have been erased from our preview section). The first one is now a game for the damn Microsoft console and the other one has been canceled or, is likely to relive with new characters on the green X poo. All the following Rare licenses left with them to the monstruous company: Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo & Kazooie, Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, Battletoads and all the rest except the Donkey Kong series which is still, of course, an exclusive property of Nintendo.
Rare did really great things on the Nintendo 64. Many people think they did even better than Nintendo's own development teams. Yes, they did in some aspects. I tend to agree Perfect Dark is the best game of the console. No matter what, Rare helped very much to sell the Nintendo 64 and their departure from Nintendo's circle of talented developers is undoubtedly a great loss. It's also a great gain for Microsoft. Money can buy everytying seemingly.
However, despite this "tragic" event for any Nintendo fans, I keep giving my full and absolute support to Nintendo. Rare has gone to the enemy, that's how I see the things even though I know the facts and understand very well that Nintendo refused to buy Rare. They had the opportunity but they didn't take it, they prefered to sell it and Microsoft wasn't stupid enough not to take this amazing chance. I know also that Nintendo had a plan to restructure Rare but they refused it, that might be what made the separation inevitable. It's Nintendo's responsability but what makes me sick is to think Microsoft now fully owns Rare. Nintendo used to own 49% of the company, I wonder if it's going to change things, there, at Twycross.
Sony and Microsoft, for me, it's all the same crap. Two big companies willing to crush any obstacles on their way with their millions and billions. Rare sold to one of them, it's the virgin becoming suddenly a whore. And with a smile on her face. I know Rare has loads of fans, especially in Europe and most particularly UK, but I have one piece of advise: do not buy a X-Box ! Unless you love Rare the best, don't. By buying it, you'll just help Microsoft to establish itself on the market and to weaken Nintendo. Microsoft wants to stay in the video game market. They have billions for this purpose and what they want, somehow, they get it. They even tried to buy Nintendo before entering the market with their X poo.
There are two other reasons also why you shouldn't follow Rare:
1- Microsoft bought Rare for $375 million. Nintendo was owning 49% of the company and is likely to have filled largely his purse with the deal. As a matter of fact, Nintendo is said to have a big announcement for the end of the year and, according to an article in a Japanese magazine (V-Jump), the news is something which is going to boost its sales. Maybe it's exaggerated, but there's surely something and it's unlikely to be the new Zelda and the new Mario announced by Miyamoto in a recent interview. How Nintendo is going to invest its recent earned cash ? We might know before the end of the year.
2- Martin Hollis, who used to be the head of software development at Rare and who was the director of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark has now his own company, Zoonami. It's unsure if the game they are currently working on is a GameCube exclusive or not, or even if it's for the GameCube at all, but it's quite likely. So, the question now is to know how much of the quality of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark is due to Mr. Hollis. The first game of Zoonami should give a hint.
Finally, just remember one thing: Rare has left, but Nintendo still remains and prepares the future. Right now Microsoft is focusing all the attention, but soon it will be Nintendo's turn.
After a plain bad Smashing Drive developed by View Point, Namco is publishing, and this time developing as well, a second game for GameCube with their rising star, Mr. Driller. Thanks to the partnership between Namco and Nintendo, Mr. Driller is the first of 6 Namco games coming to GameCube, here are the ones announced:
- Mr. Driller - Drill Land
- Soul Calibur 2 (january 2003)
- a new Ridge Racer (march 2003)
- a Starfox shooter (april 2003)
- a new episode in the Tales of Phantasy saga (july 2003)
- an exclusive RPG for Nintendo GameCube (december 2003)
In the meanwhile, get the first pictures and info about the first of them: (Game file and link removed)
Today, September 20, is the official European release for Doshin The Giant (although it's been out a few days earlier in some countries like Finland) and the memory card 251, you can find a few information about them in Samurai Nintendo.
I added a few more information about some games, mainly blocks required for saving, also some Japanese release dates.
Konami is actually one of the most productive developer on GameCube, unfortunately it's also one of the less interesting with only some sport titles. Will the GameCube ever get an exclusive Castlevania or Goemon ? We'd like to, but it doesn't seem to be in Konami's plans as they continue to make more and more uninteresting games. This Disney Skateboarding is maybe not so bad, but in comparison to games like Tony Hawk, Aggressive Inline, all its american counterparts, what a game like this can hope to achieve ? Not much, and not even targeting kids audience, as we underline in our review, the mean look of the characters is clearly an offense to Disney work.
(Game file and link removed)
One of the most interesting games from the third party this year is certainly Robotech: Battlecry developed by Vicious Cycle and published by TDK. The Japanese TV series Macross, known as Robotech both in USA and Europe, was quite a big success back in the 80's. I must say I was a fan too. The series were really good, with terrific action scenes, gorgeous mecha design, interesting characters and addictive story line, a master-piece which took a while before coming on our Nintendo consoles. A "Robotech Crystal Dream" was planned on Nintendo 64 and was finally canceled after a few years. So it's only now, with the GameCube, that the players will finally take the controls of a Veritech Fighter against the Zentraedi troops. The waiting has been long but the result seems very promising. Give a glance at our preview which has some real nice pictures:
» Preview of Robotech: Battlecry
Robotech fans and others will be pleased to know that Samurai N is going to give a special attention to the game in the coming days. You can already download a Roboteck wallpaper for your computer: (The link has been removed)
As improbable as Sonic on a Nintendo console, a while ago we couldn't imagine to see (and to play !) an episode of the Phantasy Star saga on GameCube. Yet, now it's here and it seems to sell well (released since September 12 in Japan). The GameCube gets one of the best RPG ever, one of the most famous Sega series and its first online game ! Many features which make this game one more important step in GameCube's life. If you still hardly believe such a game is coming on your favorite console, check this, the box many Japanese have right now in their room (drool, drool...).
(Picture removed)
The rumor has been around for some time now, and the lack of titles from the excellent British game developer was making it even more likely. Despite the long association Rare-Nintendo, it seems the two compagnies are spliting up. Nintendo didn't want to buy Rare for some foolish reasons (a Nintendo spokeman said Rare didn't make them earn enough money in 2001-2002... ridiculous, they had no game ready of course !), so it seems Microsoft has inherited of Rare's talents. However, nothing official has been announced yet and the exact terms of the deal has to be disclose. We'd like also to draw your attention on one person: Martin Hollis, projet leader of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, who had already left Rare to run his own company, Zoonami. Let's hope the GameCube is not going to suffer too much from this separation, even though it's certainly going to do some harm.
Yeah, Samurai N is really a strange site. You have reviews but nothing is reviewed, there are just pictures with stupid comments. Alas, I don't have time to provide a more interesting content. So you'll find pictures and a few data for Soccer Slam. Someday I'll try to write some short reviews though, I'll try. If you speak French, you can read some of my GameCube reviews in MaxoeNGC. If you only like pictures and stupid comments, well, head this way.
(Game file and link removed)
According to IGN Cube, some time ago, there was a rumour of Pilotwings coming to GameCube. Since then, nothing has been said or heard about it. However, Pilotwings on GameCube wouldn't be such a big surprise as it's been one of the first games released on both Super NES and Nintendo 64. With the power of the GameCube, it could bring some interesting new ideas to life.
The British developer of Revolution Software finally confirmed that Good Cop Bad Cop is coming to GameCube. You can see a few pictures of this promising action game in our preview.
(The game has been canned and so has our preview)
In addition to the previous news, here's the list of the games release in Japan this november.
November 1:
Tetris Worlds (Success)
November 7:
Dokapon DX - wataru sekai wa oni darake (Asmic Ace Entertainment)
November 21:
Muscle Champion - kinnikutou no kessen (Konami)
Super Monkey Ball 2 (Sega)
November 28:
Swingerz Golf (Eidos)
Eternal Arcadia - The Legend (Sega)
November:
Mario Party 4 (Nintendo)
Mr. Driller Drill-Land (Namco)
Resident Evil 0 (Capcom)
Vivendi Universal is publishing a few interesting games before the end of the year in Europe, including Bomberman Generation, initially expected on the 1st of September.
October 4:
- Crash Bandicoot, Wrath of Vortex
October 25:
- Scorpion King, Rise of an Akkadian
November 1:
- Bomberman Generation
November 8:
- Die Hard Vendetta
November 29:
- Spyro Enter the Dragonfly
November:
- Barbie Time Traveler
- Black & Bruised
- Blood Rayne
Yeah, sort of... I should be able to update soon, I have to clean the mess in the files. Don't forget to visit the message board, nobody does ! How sad. You know it's hosted in Japan, you should think "My, it's cool ! I go straight to post messages !". Also, Tripod is definitely a nice free host but you might have encountered 2 annoying problems. The first one is the pop-up windows which are quite a pain in the ass. I advise you to close the bigger one and to let the other one opened, anyway it appears all the time, just click back on the right window when it shows up. There also some ads on the poll, a real pain too, but it works at least. The other trouble is the bandwidth limitation, if the loaded data exceed a certain amount, they just lock up the site, nice... I can absolutely do nothing against this, anyway the site is not interesting nor popular enough that it could become bothersome. Huh, great !?
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Zoids VS
Farewell to Rare
Doshin The Giant and the memory card 251 come out today in Europe !
Tiny updates
November Games in Japan
